


Ratchet

by GreyLiliy



Series: Life in Glass Houses [8]
Category: Transformers: Prime, Transformers: Shattered Glass
Genre: Gen, Shattered Glass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 12:16:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2150397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyLiliy/pseuds/GreyLiliy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ratchet wants to know why everyone keeps leaving him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ratchet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueskyscribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueskyscribe/gifts).



> Takes place during [Chapter 27 of Life in Glass Houses. ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/865388/chapters/4647276)
> 
> Lady M lets me write fics for her universe and I love it. XD

“Okay, so as soon as I fix this one last bit, we can get to your—” Ratchet paused, and looked around the lab. 

The very empty lab. 

No sign of the boy anywhere. Smokescreen had left his perch from the waiting chair, and had left. Snuck out without so much as a goodbye!

“Fraggit! Gone again! ” Ratchet screamed slamming his fist down on the operating bed, jolting his little Citizen patient and the loose equipment on its surface. Ratchet rubbed his mouth and shook his head, his spark aching. “That little brat. How dare he get my hopes up and leave like that!”

The Citizen whimpered horribly, shifting and trying to weasel his way off the gurney. At least he had an excuse for wanting to get out of the med-bay so badly. He was a Decepticon. It was their job to cower before the superior Autobot. But Smokescreen? That cute little kid who needed his check ups? Nonsense!

“Slingshot, tell me straight,” Ratchet said, taking his seat again and leaning on the table side. He pat his chest and looked the Citizen in the visor. “I’m a good doctor, right? I put your arm back on right as rain, didn’t I?”

“Please, p-please don’t kill me,” Slingshot whimpered.

“We talked about that,” Ratchet said, “And stop changing the subject. I’m a good doctor. I just want what’s best for my patients, so why do they keep running!

“Smokescreen finally sees the light and shows up for his physical, one he was deeply in need of after his last little screw up and run in with our Lord Prime I want you to know, and poof! Gone like a puff of exhaust out the door.

“They keep getting cold feet for some reason, and avoiding me. But why?” Ratchet shook his head, and fiddled with the tool he’d collected. He asked the Citizen, “What do you think?”

Slingshot trembled, “I-I don’t know.”

“Guess you wouldn’t,” Ratchet said. He lifted the Citizen’s arm, and finished tightening up the last bits. He moved it back and forth, and confirmed that it was in perfect working order. Not that he really needed to confirm it—he was Ratchet! Of course it worked! “No one seems to know. And it ain’t just him! I can’t get any of ‘um to come in for their check ups. I only see them when they’re on their death beds. Their Death Beds, Slingshot!”

“I-I wouldn’t want to be there,” Slingshot whimpered. He drew his head to the side, and wheezed. “Not a good place.”

“And they wouldn’t be there so often if they let me do maintenance,” Ratchet hissed. He threw his hands up and stood from his stool. Ratchet threw his tool across the room, and watched it slam into the side wall. It hit the ground with a clatter, and Ratchet huffed. “It only makes sense! And who better than me to do it?”

Ratchet slammed the table with his fist. He hit a second time, and almost a third—but he caught himself. The last thing he needed was to throw a tantrum in front of his guest. Ratchet whispered, “Who better than me? I’m the best damn doctor on Cybertron bar none! You think your little Knockdown had class? Bah! He’s a hack!”

“K-knockdown was great!” Slingshot spit out. Ratchet turned and glared, gripping his cyan hand into a fist. Slingshot’s bolts rattled in fear. “H-he was good to us!”

“Are you saying that I’m not, Slingshot?” Ratchet asked, leaning closer to his helm. He grabbed the side of it and twisted it. Ratchet squeezed the metal, threatening to undo his hard work with a dent. “Have I not been good to you?”

Slingshot whimpered.

“I see how it is,” Ratchet said, leaning away. He dropped the mechs’ head back on the table and looked over the arm. They were all the same. No one appreciated him. Not a fragging one of them. Ratchet cleaned up his hands with a rag and tossed it on the table. “Looks like you’re all done, Slingshot.”

“O-oh?” The mech’s vents heaved as he exhaled and inhaled through his vents too hard. “W-what now?”

“I get to say goodbye to you, too,” Ratchet said. He inhaled a large breath through his vents, and put on a smile. No sense in being in a foul mood on this guy’s last night. Ratchet hummed and wheeled over his handy-dandy conversion cart. “Even you guys, too, must leave me.”

“You said you weren’t going to kill me!” Slingshot shrieked, jerking hard on his restraints and shaking the table with it.

“I’m not,” Ratchet said, rolling his eyes. He slammed the cart next to the operating table, just beside the little Citizen’s head. “Just upgrading you from Sentient Citizen, to Mindless Vehicon. But, dead or transformed, you won’t be up for talking in a few minutes.”

“Already!? But! No! No!” Slingshot shouted. Poor thing nearly sobbed. “I take it back! I take it back! I’d rather die!”

Ratchet pat his side. “Now, now, I know you’d like to stay and chat, but you’re the only one.”

Slingshot sobbed through it all, with each wire attachment plugged into the back of his head. Procedure’d be quick, and ridiculously painful. Ratchet snapped the last wire in place. “Soon you’ll be a good little drone, ready to follow orders and do as you’re told.”

Ratchet leaned on the side of his table, and typed in the instructions. He grinned a bit. “Ought to try this on Smokescreen.”

He flipped the switch, and Slingshot screamed. Ratchet pat the wriggling Vehicon’s shoulder as he walked away and waited from the program to finish loading. He pulled over a box of energon goodies from his desk and popped one into his mouth. “Could always use a nurse around here.”


End file.
